Local houses of worship work to keep their flocks

Today, like most houses of worship on Easter, Twin Lakes Church in Aptos will pull out all the stops for its 7,000 expected guests.

Bounce houses and balloons will be set out for the kids, breakfast will be served, a former American Idol contestant will sing and two parking teams will try to bring order to it all.

"We ask for hundreds of extra volunteers on this weekend," Twin Lakes Pastor Rene Schlaepfer said. "And the funny thing is people are really happy to do it because it's so fun."

With all the extra frills or perhaps because they were dragged along by a friend or family member, people flock to church on Easter like no other Sunday.

But, as some studies suggest a declining participation in organized religion, local churches are trying harder to keep people in the congregation long after the empty plastic eggs are cleaned up and the pink bunny suits sent to the cleaners.

"What I'm trying to expose people to when they come to church on Christmas and Easter," Schlaepfer said, "is the multiple dimensions of a healthy church."

A 2007 study - the most recent data available - by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that the category of people who are unaffiliated with any particular religion has grown faster than any religious group in recent decades. About 7 percent of people said they were unaffiliated with any religion when they were children, but that number has more than doubled to 16 percent among adults. The study also found that more than one in four people have left the religion in which they were raised.

And the General Social Survey shows that the percentage of people who never attend religious services rose from 13 percent to 22 percent from 1990-2008.

Pastors see these studies and others and know something about the church formula hasn't worked. So they look for new ways of doing things.

Vintage Faith Church on High Street tries to draw its members, many of whom are younger and involved in the arts, with things like mixing live painting on stage with worship or a sermon. The church also has the Abbey, a coffee, art and music lounge.

"The fact that churches are shrinking in attendance nationally does gravely concern me and other leaders," Vintage Faith Pastor Josh Fox said. "We need to wake up to the reality that the way we've done church, the way we've tried to share Jesus with our world is not working. ... Ultimately, God is in control of all things but when something like that happens it should shake us to the core."

Further up High Street, First Congregational Church openly welcomes the gay and lesbian community and encourages green practices like worm compost bins.

"This is one of those cool places in Santa Cruz where all folks are welcome," said First Congregational Senior Minister Dave Grishaw-Jones. "I didn't have that growing up. I grew up in churches that were more homophobic and racist."

Schlaepfer said Twin Lakes uses Easter services to draw people in for the long haul. The church promotes year-round events like teachings from renowned speakers and a sermon series immediately following Easter called "Trusting God in Troubled Times."

"The thing is you can never guilt people into anything," Schlaepfer said. "I think the thing to do is explain what can make church attractive the rest of the year."

Whatever these local churches are doing, it may be working. While religious affiliation is down nationally, these three churches have seen an increase in regular attendance. First Congregational has gone from about 300 members to 350 over the past five years, Grishaw-Jones said. Twin Lakes saw about a 7-percent increase over five years, Schlaepfer said, while Fox said Vintage Faith has gone from 150 members when it opened in 2004 to about 600 now.

St. Patrick's Parish in Watsonville, meanwhile, has seen steady attendance while the Pew Forum study shows that the amount of people who have left Catholicism outnumber the amount who have joined by almost four to one.

"During the year, we have several youth retreats, adult retreats and also marriage retreats," St. Patrick's Father Miguel Grajeda said. "It's a surprise that in other places people aren't going to church but in this town people are faithful."

Yet Greg Smith, a senior researcher with the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Life, was quick to point out that attendance doesn't necessarily mean a lot about where people stand in their faith.

"It's certainly not the case that 100 percent of the unaffiliated group never attends services," he said.

And, as pastors like Fox know, the opposite is also true.

"People, especially younger generations, have been burned out on church," Fox said. "So, at Vintage Faith we're trying to come back to what vintage Christianity is all about. ...We want to be a life-giving type of people to show those who have been burned or wounded that often fallible people have messed things up in churches because churches are run by fallible people."

Of course, attendance "is only the beginning for a church," Schlaepfer said, be it Easter or any other Sunday.

"Our goal is to produce disciples of Christ," he said, "who are loving, kind, nonjudgmental."